Currently known minimally invasive procedures for the treatment of cardiac and other disease conditions use manually or robotically actuated instruments which may be inserted transcutaneously into body spaces such as the thorax or peritoneum, transcutaneously or percutaneously into lumens such as the blood vessels, through natural orifices and/or lumens such as the mouth and/or upper gastrointestinal tract, etc. For example, many conventional minimally-invasive cardiac diagnostic and/or interventional techniques involve accessing the right atrium of the heart percutaneously with a catheter or catheter system by way of the inferior vena cava. When controlling an elongate instrument, such as a catheter, in any one of these applications, the physician operator can push on the proximal end of the catheter and attempt to feel the distal end make contact with pertinent tissue structures, such as the walls of the heart. Some experienced physicians attempt to determine or gauge the approximate force being applied to the distal end of a catheter due to contact with tissue structures or other objects, such as other instruments, prostheses, or the like, by interpreting the loads they tactically sense at the proximal end of the inserted catheter with their fingers and/or hands. Such an estimation of the force, however, is quite challenging and somewhat imprecise given the generally compliant nature of many minimally-invasive instruments, associated frictional loads, dynamic positioning of the instrument versus nearby tissue structures, and other factors.
Manually and robotically-navigated interventional systems and devices, such as steerable catheters, are well suited for performing a variety of minimally invasive procedures. Manually-navigated catheters generally have one or more handles extending from their proximal end with which the operator may steer the pertinent instrument. Robotically-navigated catheters may have a proximal interface configured to interface with a catheter driver comprising, for example, one or more motors configured to induce navigation of the elongate portion of the instrument in response to computer-based automation commands, commands input by the operator at a master input device, combinations thereof, or the like. Regardless of the manual or electromechanical nature of the driving mechanism for a diagnostic or interventional instrument, the operator performing the procedure would prefer to have accurate, timely information regarding the forces experienced at the distal portion of the working instrument. There thus is a need for an improved force-sensing technology to facilitate the execution of minimally-invasive interventional procedures. It is desirable to have the capability to accurately monitor the loads applied by or to the subject medical instrument or device from adjacent tissues and other objects.